Every Saturday morning three of my teammates and myself get up early, take time to drink our coffee, and venture across the noisy, busy town to get to church. As we approach the church my enthusiasm continues to grow. Every week, Saturday is one of my favorite days because we get to have fellowship with women of our church at this prayer meeting. There is something very powerful about people from four different nations uniting together and pouring our hearts out to our Heavenly Father. I have a deep love and appreciation for each of the ladies that come (around ten in all). Prayer is powerful because we get to talk to the Maker of this world. A deep bond is made when your sisters and you are talking to the Maker of this world together. Culturally it is even more fun when I hear three different languages praying at once, and here sometimes everyone just keeps talking louder and louder until it’s almost a shout. Literally we’re crying out to God, asking Him to hear us.
This past week I led the women in worship (which I feel very unqualified to do). Then one of my teammates led the devotion. Because we are storytellers, she told the story of Peter walking on the water. The paraphrased version from Matthew 14 goes like this,
“Jesus was with a large crowd of people, and after feeding the five thousand people he dismissed them. He sent His disciples across the sea, and went off alone to pray. Later while the disciples were on the boat a long way from land, they saw what they thought was a ghost coming toward them and they were afraid. Jesus called out that it was him and Peter exclaimed, “Lord if it is you, call me to walk to you.” So Jesus called Peter to come. Peter jumped out of the boat and started walking on the water. When he realized the wind around him, he started to sink. But Jesus reached out and grabbed him and asked, “Where is your faith?” When they reached the boat the wind ceased and all of the disciples were amazed. “
We discussed this story, searching through it to find what truths we learn about God, Jesus, and people. Everyone chimed in and shared their thoughts. After discussion I felt changed, it’s like when you hear something that rings true in the depths of your heart. We always talk about Peter acting before He thinks, but I like to look at his actions in this story through his radical faith. He boldly asked Jesus to call him to walk on the water. Logically this is impossible unless you have magical shoes that can float and perfect balance skills. But Peter’s faith believes that Jesus can make him walk on water, no matter what the logical facts are. So Peter jumps out…he jumps out of the boat! For the moment he forgets the wind and just starts walking. Only when he takes his eyes off of Jesus does he get distracted by the wind and start to sink. Thankfully Jesus was there to grab his hand. Jesus is ALWAYS there to grab out hand. Jesus knew that what Peter was asking wasn’t logical to the human brain but He honored Peter’s faith and was there to grab his hand when needed it. So if this truth rings in the depths of my heart, what does that mean?? It means that I want to be like Peter. I don’t want to be like the other disciples who just watched this all happen. I want to boldly believe that Jesus is going to go beyond what is logical. I want to jump out of the boat and into the storm when the Spirit leads me to. I don’t want to get bogged down by what might seem the logical answer or how something isn’t logically possible. If my eyes are taken off of Jesus, I know I’ll start to sink. Jesus goes beyond the logical and I want to have radical faith that will follow Him wherever He leads me.
Of course after this amazing discussion, we poured our hearts out to God, believing that He is going to perform miracles around the globe. That He is going to redeem people. That He’s going to be with His children around the world, in war zones, in sex trafficking, and with people at their daily 9-5 job. Asking God to pour His Spirit into churches, heal the sick, protect His children from the uncleanliness of the world. Praising God for what He’s done in our lives, how He has answered our prayers and know that He will continue to do so. I can testify that God has helped remove uncleanliness from my heart, He is protecting me and it’s because I begged him to help me overcome my weaknesses. Praise the Lord for answering our prayers and for teaching us truths that will continue to ring true in the depths of our hearts forever.